HuskerFever

I think a better comparison is taxes. People find loopholes and tax havens to get around paying taxes. With NIL, sure, a lot of this will come out in the open. But that's not going to stop some recruiters from finding arbitrage opportunities that are definite grey areas.

Although I'm not fully subscribed to the same outlook, Blake's in the industry and I would default to him. Interesting take on comparing it to the eSports growth as that is a massive market. I would also make the connection to the changing landscape Nebraska faced. In our prime, we were ahead of the sport in terms of a strength and conditioning program, being faster and stronger at every position than our opponent. We had prime time access to very limited TV coverage. We were one of twenty of so top brands in college football. The landscape changed. Other teams caught up with strength and conditioning and TV coverage now reaches Sun Belt football. NIL appears to be just like that changing landscape. If you're late to the party, you're severally limiting your ability to attract talent and, ergo, limiting your ability to become a national powerhouse. I haven't commented much in response to your latest comments @Norm Peterson, but you're certainly not wrong. Followers, impressions, and brand matters. Following those players increases their value. And if player follower trends tend to be higher at one school versus another school, that could be a draw for that athlete. Time will tell what the market pays, what the players will be attracted to, etc. But being late to the party in legal activity can take a program from a powerhouse to a 3-5 team.

Hate to break it to you, but this isn't 1970s college sports anymore. "Amateur" left the athlete in the NCAA more than 20 years ago.

There's a very high likelihood that 90% of student athletes will make $1,000 or less over their collegiate career from NIL and the other 10% will make some career-level income.

This one's going to sting. But the fact that this moment for Arkansas was so big helps put into perspective not only how close we were to advancing, but also how close we matched up to the #1 team in the country.

@Navin R. Johnson rough season... Even the Pirates' homeruns don't even count.

It's a worthy thing to look at. Not entirely your question, but here it is. Teams in the NCAA tournament, North of the North Carolina/Virginia border: Army Central Connecticut Central Michigan Fairfield Gonzaga Indiana State Liberty Maryland Michigan Nevada NJIT Norfolk State North Dakota State Northeastern Notre Dame Old Dominion Oregon Oregon State Rider Southeast Missouri State Stanford UConn VCU Virginia Wright State "North" teams that were at-large bids: Fairfield Indiana State Liberty Maryland Michigan Notre Dame Oregon Oregon State Stanford Virginia Not at-large, but would likely make the tournament at-large had they not earned an automatic bid: Central Michigan Nebraska Old Dominion The definition of "North" is very loose and definitely up for debate. But based on the NC/VA line, that's 13 teams of 64 that would have made the NCAA tournament without an at-large bid. 9 of those 13 teams are in P5 conferences. That's not favorable, all things considered. But possible. Build a consistent brand of excellence, and you're hard to leave out of the tournament. No matter what sport you're talking about. This year was a good start at building that.

Don't. Even.

Acknowledging this point as well. And with COVID waivers and stuff, honestly I can't tell you what class college baseball players are in anymore these days.

https://journalstar.com/sports/huskers/sipple/steven-m-sipple-sure-the-loss-stings-but-huskers-late-season-uprising-something-to-behold/article_d5322123-cba5-5520-ad3c-f50601170bf9.amp.html

Didn't you hear?? The Big Ten commissioner is down this year.

Another Basketball Championship? That will never get old to say. Keep doing you, Fred!

If the talent we brought into the baseball program in such a short time period is any indication of our influx of basketball talent we just brought in this season, this could be a lot of fun to watch!

First Arkansas run: 0 out HR Second Arkansas run: 2 out HR Final runs: 2 out passed ball + 3 run HR 5 of the 6 runs occurred with 2 outs.

Curious what the rate of home runs are at their home stadium. But might hold the same. Either way, yes, home runs did us in. "Easy" runs for them; we didn't make them earn it. But I would also argue that our biggest problem was falling flat when Kopps came in and had 5+ straight innings of zero production on offense.

Don't want to take anything you said away. Just wanted to say... That was fun! Glad Nebraska baseball could be fun again!

[Terrified to play Nebraska] [Then wins Game 7 in the bottom of the 8th inning] "See! We own you! You suck!"

The way I see it, our only self-inflicted wound (aside from home run hits) was a passed ball. So literally all of our mistakes were on the mound. I don't say this to dog on the pitchers. I say this to say that our infield and outfield did everything they needed to do to defeat the #1 team in the nation. Arkansas is #1 for a reason. And they exploited the very few opportunities they had.

Well Arky had 6 hits. Those were some really effective 6 hits too...

Better team won. But if those fans don't respect this team, they don't respect the game.

We were never the same team when Kopps came in.

ESPN and the selection committee got exactly what they wanted out of this.

How many runs did we give up with 2 outs?

We only gave up one run that didn't go yard.